Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Toledot 1

good evening today we're learning par toot we're using AR we're on page 125 last week we learned about Abraham bearing Sarah Abraham sending elazar to search for a wife for Yak elzar goes to Khan to Abraham's brother's City and he finds a wife for yak and her name is Rifka and um now on page 125 the Torah tells us that these are The Offspring of son of Abraham the word toot means either Offspring or it means happenings or the history chronology so this is the history of yak son of Abraham Abraham gave birth to yak yak was 40 years old when he took Rifka daughter of betel as a wife so Yak was 40 and the midash says that Rifka was 3 years old and they waited for 10 years until she was fit to be pregnant and give birth and then they tried and it didn't work for 10 years after that they tried and only then um Yak realized that if it continues like this he may will may have to marry someone else just like his father Abraham but he really didn't want to marry anyone else because ideally a man is supposed to have one wife more than one wife is allowed but it's not ideal and being that yak was an ideal human being the one that was put on the altar as an offering and he was willing to give up his life for Hashem and Abraham was willing to give up his son for Hashem he became on such a level um like a Corban like an offering he became kados he became holy and because of that he be behaved in a perfect manner that is why he did not leave the land of Israel uh that's why elazar was sent to bring the wife to him and that is why he realized that it's not an option for him to marry a second wife so after 10 years of trying he really started praying as it says in verse 21 is intreated he prayed to Hashem opposite his wife which means either um opposite the wife means concerning his wife about the wife or it means that they were really standing in two corners of the room and they were both praying intensely because she was Barren she couldn't have children and Hashem allowed himself to be in treated which means he accepted their prayer the prayer ofak and his wife Rifka conceived so at 23 Rifka is about to give birth but the children the fittes agitated within her which means they were moving too much and at this time she didn't even know that she she has twins so imagine here's this lady for the first time in her life she became pregnant and all of a sudden there is a war going on in her stomach she thinks what's going on this is not normal pregnancy perhaps I have a monster in my stomach and she couldn't understand when she would be doing a good thing there was a war inside of her when she was passing a place where people were doing bad things there was a war inside of her and she couldn't understand what kind of baby is this does he like good things or does he like bad things when I'm next to Holiness there's a commotion when I'm next to impurity and evil there's commotion as well so she was confused and she worried that perhaps the child is not healthy perhaps he's not feeling well and Shalom he may die so she said if so why am I thus why did I beg to get pregnant why did I need this that I should be in so much pain and now there's a possibility that the baby will die so she went to inquire of Hashem she went to a Lo called Prophet who was Shem the son of Noah and he asked him and she asked him what's going on and Hashem said to her through the prophet Hashem sent a message two nations are in your womb two regimes from your insights shall be separated so Hashem is sending her a message that you have two babies and that is why there's such a different nature in your baby because there are two people there and that is why when you pass a place of immorality of idol worship there is a war because one of them wants to jump out and join and the other one is stopping him and when you pass a place of Holiness like place where they learn Torah place where people serve God there's commotion again because the other one wants to come out and join them and the evil one is trying to stop him and not only that these are not simple people two nations are in your womb each one will create a great nation two regimes two different kinds of systems of government from your insides shall be separated from your insides means as soon as they leave leave your stomach they will be separated and already they will become two regimes they everyone will recognize that these two babies are not Brothers they are so different like as if they're coming from two different nations the might shall pass from one regime to the other which means they will always struggle against each other and when one is winning is on top the other one is on the bottom and sometimes in history the other one will be on top and the other one will be on the bottom they will not have peace they will always be at War always competition and finally the Elder will serve the younger and now he gives her the most important piece of information who is going to be the head of the family who is going to be more righteous who is going to be greater and Hashem tells her the younger one even though they're twins they're the same age but the one that comes out second is going to be the leader of the family so that's an important piece of information because Rifka will know who should get the blessing of the firstborn now we go to page 127 the birth of yakob and Isa when her term to Bear grew full at 9 months full pregnancy then behold there were twins in her womb for her it wasn't a surprise but for people outside it was because she didn't tell anyone that that she's pregnant with twins she kept the prophecy to herself and as we will see later that was the right thing to do we have a rule that when a prophet receives a prophecy he's not allowed to tell it to others unless Hashem tells him to do that but if Hashem does not give him the message to pass over the prophecy to others then he's not allowed to share so verse 25 the first one emerged red red means that he's very Lively very healthy very robust very physical entirely like a hairy mental he had already full body hair grown on all his limbs like an adult and they named him esav the word esav in Hebrew means ready made asav in Hebrew means um from the word o means to do a made he's done he's finished product so when he was born he already had full set of all hairs perhaps even full set of teeth and his skin was not white like a when a baby is born not blue not yellow it was already red so from birth they recognized he's going to be very successful in subduing the physical world he's going to invent all the technology Machinery weapons everything that you need to control the physical world after that his brother emerged with his hand grasping onto the heel of esav imagine the scene the brother comes out and as they're pulling him out there's a hand that um that is holding on not letting go now somebody is asking question how's possible fora to be born red when we say red doesn't mean that he was painted in red paint doesn't mean that that he was the color of blood all over his body no it means that you could see blood from under his skin which means he was already full of blood his body was full of blood he was already energetic already as if he was uh many months old not a newborn um to to signify that he is fully ready for battle to take on the whole world and in fact I Sayes say that that was the mission of asav to singlehandedly conquer the entire world in order to submit everyone under Yakov Yakov was supposed to be the one who would educate the world about God and esav was like a policeman he was supposed to conquer the entire world and force everyone to come and learn from yakob he was supposed to be the physical ruler of the world and yov was supposed to be the spiritual ruler of the world together they were supposed to bring the kingdom of God on Earth but as we will see later ASA failed in his mission so now everything fell on yakov's shoulders and now it's the Jewish people's responsibility to improve the world to invent things as well as to educate people about God andem thank God we are doing both jobs successfully we are first in every human endeavor so a baby the second baby was holding on to the foot the heel of esav as if to show I will fight with you from the womb I'm not going to let you destroy the world I'm not going to allow you with your wicked nature to damage the world I will weaken your power I will hold on to you I will put Reigns on you so they called his name yov they now doesn't say they in the Torah by ASA it says they named him Esa by yob itself he called his name yov so by asav everyone who saw him realized what he stood for he was assu he was readymade he was finished product so everyone agreed he should be named asav but when Yakov was born yes he was holding on to asov but otherwise he looked like a regular baby so it says he called him Yakov who is he so the simple meaning is that his father Yak called him yov why because he was holding on to the hill the hill in Hebrew mean is e and uh the word yov comes from the root AEV with a you at the beginning so his father already gave him a blessing he said yov the fact that he's holding on to the heel and not letting esav go ahead yov means he will come ahead from behind he will eventually be first that was the prediction and that was the the the blessing and our sages say that at the end of times that is actually what is going to happen because the word e also means the end of times just like the heel is the lowest part of the body so too um e the heel of time means the end of time at the end of time yov will come out ahead of esav the second interpretation is that he called his name yov is God himself called his name yov and ishak was 60 years old when she bore them 20 years after they got married the young boys grew up and esav became one who knows hunting and trapping a man of the field a man of the field means either that he was a hunter or that he was a farmer both fit in basically he spent his life outdoors hunting and working the field but Yakov was a wholesome man he was perfect abiding intents and this also has two meanings either abiding intense means that he spent his time indoors in introspection in learning Torah or tents means that he was a Shepherd because Shepherds did not live in houses because they had to move constantly when the Sheep finish eating the grass in one location they have to relocate and Pitch their tent elsewhere to allow the Sheep to Pure so here we reminded about two other brothers Ken and heav we remember that Ken was a farmer and heav was a Shepherd so too history repeats itself asav became a farmer the man of the field and yov became the shepherd and just like in the story of Ken and heav Ken was jealous of heav and he tried to kill heav and he was successful so to in the story of asav and yob asav was jealous of yob and he tried to kill him but here comes the difference yov was protected by God and asav as much as he wanted did not succeed and asav is still trying to hurt the Jewish people and Hashem is protecting us already for 4,000 years ever since yakob was born so verse 28 loved asav because he brought him wild animals that he haunted to eat but Rifka loved Yakov now this is surprising why would both parents love only one child doesn't seem right and in fact our sages say that loved both of them when the Torah says that y loved as what it means is two things number one that the love of Y for asav was dependent on the food that asav was providing for the family otherwise ASA didn't have any Merit on his own to be loved however yak loved yob just as much the Torah just doesn't have to tell it to us because it was a natural love yob was so good that y of course loved him but with as had to find a reason for loving him and that is that that asav provides us with food he hunts animals another interpretation is that Yak recognized that ASV has a weakness that ASA is on a borderline he might choose good or he's also likely to choose bad and so Yak said I will show him extra love on purpose so that he uses his talents for good he likes to trap he likes to hunt he likes to kill let him continue using his talent for animals and God forbid not for people let him not trick people people let him not haunt people Rob them and let him not kill people and because of that is try to instill in asav the message that I love you because you are hunting animals because you're trapping animals because you're killing animals so that esav is proud of his role and he doesn't have desire to switch to people unfortunately it didn't help but Yak is not to be blamed because he did everything perfectly he like a good parent showed extra love and attention to the most troubled child to asav now what about Rifka why does it say she loved only Yakov for Rifka it's easy to understand because Hashem himself told her that the younger one will be the leader of the family that the younger one will represent goodness and that unfortunately the older one will represent evil so she knew the nature of Asa from the beginning and so she couldn't bring herself to love ASA because she knew what kind of person he's going to become so it was ult for her now verse 29 we now go ahead to the